Quinn unveils $2.7 billion Medicaid plan today at 3

* Gov. Pat Quinn will unveil his Medicaid plan today at 3 o’clock in Springfield. The live stream will be here. You can follow Tweets from the presser on today’s live session coverage post.

Quinn is likely to propose steep cuts in provider reimbursement rates and a buck a pack cigarette tax hike. The Tribune looks at some other cuts...

One program on the list for possible elimination is Illinois Cares Rx, which provides discount drug coverage for 180,000 low-income seniors and people with disabilities across Illinois.

Also under consideration is limiting eligibility for adults enrolled in the Family Care health insurance program, which charges small co-pays and monthly premiums for services ranging from doctor visits to dental care and prescription drugs. If guidelines are changed, more than 26,000 people would no longer qualify for coverage. […]

Other ideas include eliminating a number of so-called “optional” services the state provides that are not required by the federal government, including getting rid of group psychotherapy for some patients and no longer funding chiropractic visits for adults. Podiatric care would be restricted to patients diagnosed with diabetes, and new limits would be placed on how often a patient could receive things like new dentures and eyeglasses or have a wheelchair repaired.

Additional cost-saving proposals include beefing up efforts by the state to ensure people who no longer qualify for Medicaid aren’t receiving benefits, and more standardized measures of care that emphasize prevention. Other ideas include reviewing medicines a patient receives to make sure they are all needed and adding or increasing co-pays for certain services.

* Meanwhile, on the other big issue of the day, pension reform, the AP talked to a member of the commission tasked with coming up with a plan…

State Sen. Michael Noland, an Elgin Democrat, says committee members have discussed adjusting cost-of-living increases. Suggestions include temporarily suspending annual pension increases to help the state catch up on the $80 billion funding gap in its five pension systems or scaling COLA increases to an employee’s length of service.

Other ideas include raising the retirement age, demanding greater employee contributions and requiring the state to pay annual pension obligations before anything else.

Noland said they have not specifically addressed asking local school districts to pick up employer contributions for their teachers that the state now pays, an idea Quinn has discussed in the past.

“The work has largely been done. The practical considerations are well understood here,” Noland said. “Now it becomes more of a political discussion.”

* And while Speaker Madigan, Gov. Quinn, Senate President Cullerton and Mayor Emanuel have all talked about how unfair it is that the state picks up the employer portion of the pension contribution for Downstate and suburban schools, but not for Chicago’s, the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund would like more state cash…

Public pensions throughout Illinois are hurting, and that includes the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF).

It’s underfunded by millions of dollars. Senate Bill 3628 would have the state of Illinois pump $270 million into the fund next year. After that, the state’s contributions would be pegged at 10 percent of what the state gives to the Teachers Retirement Fund, which is for teachers outside of Chicago.

“State funding to the pension fund would be extremely important,” Kevin Huber, director of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, said before the Pensions and Investments Committee of the Illinois State Senate. “We need help from the state.”

Huber told the committee that from 1988 to 2009, the state contributed $65 million annually to the CTPF. But in 2010, that contribution dropped to $10 million a year.

“When it drops like that, then it becomes problematic,” Huber said. “I believe the CPS (Chicago Public Schools) needs help from the pension fund matter from the state.”

Hmm. The paranoid section of my brain wonders whether this months-long debate was really designed to force a deal to spend more state money on Chicago teacher pensions.

* Power plant backers say Illinois facility still viable: The looming closure of older, coal-fired power plants and a change in interest rates shows that a new power generator planned for central Illinois is still financially viable, backers of an experimental facility in Christian County said Wednesday. In a conference call with reporters, supporters of the $3.5 billion Taylorville Energy Center said the plant would fill some of the lost electrical generating capacity without causing a significant rate hike on consumers. Plus, the coal-to-gas plant being planned by Omaha, Neb.-based Tenaska could bring thousands of jobs to an economically depressed region of Illinois, said Paul Gaynor, chief of the public interest division of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.

Comments

Smoking prevalence is higher among adults living below the poverty level (32.3 percent) than those living at or above the poverty level (23.5 percent). Perhaps this is just a clever way of getting the poor to pay for their own healthcare?

Eliminate COLA, raise the retirement age, WoW when you owe billions of dollars these guys should be in the Greek Paliament.Get to work boys
that’s what you wre elected to do. Not play kick the can.Political discussion! The taxpayers are
bleeding. What must we do storm the Capital?

Well, they’ve got 60 years of stiffing the pension systems on the state’s “required” payments to them. They’ve never been punished at the ballot box (the only punishment they understand), in act, they’ve been rewarded (in so far any fiscally responsible candidates looking to forthrightly address the problem get handily defeated). What better does anyone expect from them?

Quinn has boxed himself in by setting the target at $2.7 billion and taking ownership of that number. Anything less now looks like failure.

But nobody has come up with a plan that hits anywhere close to $2.7 billion in cuts, not even the mighty Tribune.

To hit that number Quinn has to be more harsh than the Republicans, which is saying something. I doubt he can get any such cuts passed but in the process will further cement his representation for ineffectiveness.

Is this cigarette tax hike brings in as much revenue as they claim I will eat a bowl of cinnamon. Has a cigarette tax hike in Illinois EVER brought in the revenue they claimed? EVER? And then what happens when they are $100 million or so short, who pays then?

The Illinois Democrats race to the bottom is almost complete. Alabama is the only state that taxes the sick and poor at higher rates than Illinois. Here we come Alabama, Democrats want to be just like you taxing more people into poverty.